With the development of digital techniques, network techniques and the like in recent years, such image forming apparatuses as a multiple function peripheral (MFP) and a printer have also been networked. Such image forming apparatuses are networked with a personal computer and the like through LAN (Local Area Network) and perform image forming processing in response to a print command or the like received from the personal computer (or an application executed on the personal computer).
Since the image forming apparatus networked as such is accessed by various apparatuses, security measures are generally taken from a viewpoint of prevention of frauds or abnormal processing. Such a method as allocating specific authentication information (hereinafter also referred to as a “license code”) in advance to an application approved by a manufacturer or the like of an image forming apparatus and giving permission of data communication with the image forming apparatus only to an application transmitting such an authorized license code has been known as one of such security measures. Namely, an image forming apparatus accessed by any application determines whether to receive a license code transmitted from that application or not and further determines whether the received license code is unauthorized or not. Then, only when the image forming apparatus received an authorized license code, the image forming apparatus permits access from the application. Such a license code is updated at any time, in accordance with updating of the application or expiration thereof. Therefore, in order to effectively cause such security measures to function, the manufacturer or the like of the image forming apparatus should timely distribute the updated license code.
Meanwhile, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2005-267405 (Patent Document 1) proposes a method of determining authenticity of an application installed in a networked image forming apparatus or the like.